The Commons
We hold and care for 5 commons locations across Wabanakik/Maine, each home to a variety of projects and land stewards. For community safety we don’t share location information. Below are some of the projects located across these commons.
Celebration Tree Farm & Wellness Center
Celebration Tree Farm and Wellness Center is the long-term land steward of 110 acres of beautiful forest land. They are activating the land into a space for community and cultural connections, ecological forestry, outdoor recreation and education, wellness, and social change. Celebration Tree Farm & Wellness Center is a multi-stakeholder cooperative founded in 2015. They are run by community-owners and worker-owners who benefit from the forest, the land, the barn, the garden, and the shared infrastructure. The farm provides MOFGA-certified celebration (Christmas) trees, grown with carbon-sequestering practices of ecological forestry, and offers yoga, reiki, farm stays and educational workshops to the community.
Full Circle Willow is a basket willow farm sharing space in the nursery at Wild Mountain. FCW researches cultivars and planting styles, centering ecology in all creative problem-solving, learning as we go. Working with the seasons Full Circle Willow harvests during winter dormancy, cures and dries the rods over the course of the year, plants and weaves living willow structures in early Spring and weaves wattle fences with green willow in Spring. Weaving throughout the year all manner of baskets, beautiful and useful objects, and is most honored to weave custom willow coffins for green burial. Read more about Full Circle Willow here.
Generations Retreat & Grow Farm
Generations Retreat & Grow Farm (GRGF), is a BIPOC-founded and led nonprofit focused on supporting rural, low-income, underrepresented, and disadvantaged families through land-based wellness and healing. After a decade of advocacy, education, outdoor access, growing food, and systemic change work, they have honed in on multigenerational healing as the foundation for racial equity and community resilience, and are now stewarding 24 acres of commons land in western Maine. Their programs empower families to restore mind, body, and spirit through meaningful connection to nature, nourishing foods, and wellness-centered recreation. Through sustainable farming and education that uplifts families — including family development, traditional land-based life skills and holistic health education — we create an intergenerational, trauma-informed retreat space where youth and families can heal, learn, and care for the earth and each other. Learn more about GRGF here, and learn more here about the generous land donation from the Norton family that made this possible.
La Finca Cooperative stewards a 15.4 acre off-grid farm, surrounded by 200+ acres of conserved wildlands. La Finca is a worker-owned cooperative grounded in BIPOC leadership and majority stakeholder ship. Their farm produces halal meat and fresh vegetables. They are committed to healing the mind, body, and soul of the individual and the collective, and seek to represent underrepresented communities while providing a pathway for connecting with plants, animals, and one another. Learn more here about how to support our work to ensure long-term viability for La Finca’s farming vision.
Last Girl First Healing Sanctuary
The mission of The Ensemble of Color (TEoC) is to build power, joy, and liberation for Black, Brown, Indigenous survivors of trafficking and sexual violence across Wabanakik. As TEoC celebrates its 10th anniversary, they are planning the creation of a healing sanctuary on 2.5 acres of commons land in Abenaki territory. Each season from July to December, The Ensemble of Color hopes to invite at least 50 black, brown, indigenous, and queer survivors of trafficking and or sexual violence for paid residencies, and envisions the land as a healing arts home for survivors to return to throughout their healing journeys. This land offers beautiful seclusion, protected by tall trees, with a patchwork of open clearings perfect for tiny cabins or places to sit with the land. Beyond our small space is shared community land, with forest trails, vernal pools, and larger bodies of water. Construction of a central house with kitchen and bathroom will begin in 2025, with small retreat and emergency housing cabins planned for 2026. Learn about how you can support the Ensemble of Color here.
Little River Commons
This land, 66 acres welcomed into the commons with the support of many community members, includes a section of the Little River and a community gathering house. We are currently working to determine next steps for advancing this project, with a commitment to long-term BIPOC stewardship of the land and buildings, and to ongoing Wabanaki connection with the land.
Presente! Maine stewards agricultural lands, where they cultivate food for free community distribution. Presente! is led by and for Afro-Latinx people, organizing survival programs, community power building, cultural celebration, and transformative healing practice. Presente!’s Collective Farm offers regular opportunities for community members to grow, enjoy, and be nourished by traditional foods, flowers, herbs, and practices. Presente! creates space for landless people to step back into their power, and return to the land as a sanctuary. Learn more here about how to support our current work with Presente to secure a permanent community center in Portland.
Wild Mountain Cooperative
Wild Mountain is a cooperative living community, a cooperatively-run subsistence farm, a gathering place for transformative organizing, teaching, and learning, and an open space for imagining new land-based collective projects and ways of living.
Wild Mountain Nursery is a worker-owned tree and plant nursery specializing in cold-hardy, fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. Their goal is to supply our communities with high-quality, perennial food sources to build local resilience, to increase food access for all, and to share the joys of fresh, Maine-grown fruit.
Why We Call this Place “Wabanakik/Maine”
Wabanakik means “place of the people of the dawn,” or “place of the Wabanaki.” We use this name to acknowledge that we live in occupied Wabanaki homelands, and to reclaim this place as first and foremost a Wabanaki place.
“Wabanakik/Maine” indicates that we’re working in the portion of occupied Wabanakik that settler-colonists have called “Maine.” Other parts of the homeland can be referred to as Wabanakik/New Hampshire, Wabanakik/Vermont, Wabanakik/Quebec, and Wabanakik/New Brunswick.
